The invention relates to the metering of water, gas and electricity, and more particularly to an electronic register for a water meter.
In the field of water meters, a turbine, nutating disc, a compound meter, or other type of flow measuring device is positioned in a housing that is connected in a water supply line. This is a xe2x80x9cwater meterxe2x80x9d. An instrument known as a xe2x80x9cregisterxe2x80x9d is disposed on the water meter, usually on top of the water meter in an enclosure of a type shown in Paese et al. U.S. Des. Pat. No. 347,592, issued Jun. 7, 1994. Inside the register enclosure is a device with a dial or an odometer, or both, for displaying a number of units of water, such as cubic feet or gallons, which has been consumed by a water utility customer. See, for example, the register described in Paese et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,376,776, which discloses an odometer in a meter register.
It has been known to couple the movements of a water meter to a meter register by providing a moving magnetic element in the meter (xe2x80x9cthe wet side xe2x80x9d) and a magnetic element in the meter register (xe2x80x9cthe dry sidexe2x80x9d). This allows the register to be mounted on the meter in a non-invasive fashion.
As disclosed in the above-mentioned prior art, meter registers have been largely mechanical devices, with the exception of a transducer for converting mechanical movements to electrical pulses, as disclosed in Strobel et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,868,566.
One of the limitations of mechanical meter registers is that a different meter register must be manufactured for each respective meter, due to difference in size and flow range, wet side magnet resolution and desired unit of measure of the respective meters.
Advances in electronics have now suggested that an electronic meter register might be feasible. It is a general object of the invention to provide a meter register which, to the extent possible, replaces mechanical parts with electronics.
One of the technical problems in providing such an electronic meter register is that the totalizer is contained in a securely sealed glass and metal enclosure. A convenient method must be provided to initialize the meter register and reset it if necessary.
A further object of the present invention is to provide a single meter register that is non-invasive to the flow meter device and that will operate with many different types of water meters, thereby providing a meter register that is compatible with meters in a range of sizes.
A further object of the invention is to provide an electronic meter register with a service life comparable to a mechanical register.
The invention relates to a programmable, universal electronic meter register that will operate with meters of different sizes.
The invention more particularly includes a meter register having a stored control program, a microelectronic CPU for executing the stored control program for reading in pulses and outputting data representing units of flow volume, an output device responsive to output data from the CPU for outputting units of flow volume, an output device responsive to output data from the CPU for outputting flow rate, and in which the CPU stores a programmable meter input resolution factor for a corresponding one of several meters for scaling the output data that is transmitted to the output device.
The invention allows the user to specify resolution, which would not be possible with mechanical registers. Mechanical registers have a minimum resolution to the loading of the corresponding gear train. The register of the present invention is limited only by the resolution of the magnetic element transmitting pulses to the register.
The invention also relates to an electronic meter register having a novel magnetic sensor arrangement.
The input section comprises a pair of magnetically switched sensors on the dry side, and a rotating wet side magnetic element driven by the meter, which in a preferred embodiment, has two north poles and two south poles for generating eight switched events per revolution of the wet side magnet. Such an arrangement will sense negative flow, as well as positive flow.
The invention also relates to a universal electronic meter register having a communication interface to an external programmer which includes bidirectional lines for sending data to the programmer or receiving data from the programmer.
The meter register further comprises two lines for transmitting data to an external unit and receiving data therefrom. These lines are bidirectional when an external unit is performing programming functions for the meter register. The CPU is responsive to sense the connection of a 4-to-20 milliamp external power source through at least one other line to transmit data to the external unit.
The invention also relates to a universal electronic meter register having a novel, non-invasive control for reading a plurality of data screens through the glass portion of a sealed enclosure. An external magnet can brought into close proximity with a transparent cover, and without contacting it, be used to actuate a reed switch in the register to produce a sequence of screen displays.
The meter register further comprises a magnetically responsive switch electrically connected to the CPU and responsive to movement of an external magnet to cause the CPU to display a sequence of screen displays on the electronic visual display. The magnetically responsive switch is disposed inside a sealed meter register enclosure. The sealed enclosure includes a glass cover with a glass-to-metal seal with other parts of the enclosure.
Other objects and advantages of the invention, besides those discussed above, will be apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art from the description of the preferred embodiments which follow. In the description, reference is made to the accompanying drawings, which form a part hereof, and which illustrate examples of the invention. Such examples, however, are not exhaustive of the various embodiments of the invention, and therefore, reference is made to the claims which follow the description for determining the scope of the invention.